12.13.2024

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T land grab? Troubled transit agency raising suspicions as it lays claim to prime real estate in Boston, boxing out new housing and other development

It’s bad enough to be stuck with one of the world’s worst mass transit systems, formerly known as the MBTA.

But now the T appears to be embarking on old-fashioned land grab, laying claim to prime development sites in Allston, South Boston, and Readville that have the potential for thousands of new housing units.

And that’s before we even get to land it is buying in Springfield.

Why? Despite ridership that is still nowhere near pre-pandemic levels, the MBTA insists it needs more places to park all its half-empty, perpetually delayed trains. Seriously.

Just take Widett Circle, a 100 acre site of warehouses and parking lots in South Boston floated as a possible location for an Olympic stadium during the city’s brief pursuit of that pipe dream a decade ago.

Widett Circle in South Boston, which the T plans to use as a train yard

More practically, the site’s previous owner and would-be developer, Bill Keravuori, had envisioned a 24 million square foot development that would have included housing and a 30 acre park.

But where some envisioned a new neighborhood, the T saw a giant parking lot for trains, plunking down $255 million in 2023 for the sprawling site.

But enough land to build another Back Bay apparently isn’t enough for the T and its train storage needs.

The transit agency also wants to park trains on some of the hugely valuable Allston acreage that would be freed up by the proposed, $1 billion straightening and relocation of the section of the Turnpike that cuts through the neighborhood.

The Allston trainyard is needed as plans move forward to open up new east-west rail service between the Boston area and Western Massachusetts, T officials contend.

Yet the state Department of Transportation, which oversees the T, recently forked over more than $2 million for a site in Springfield that it plans to use as a train layover and maintenance facility.

Do the T and state transportation officials really need both the Allston and Springfield sites? And if it really does - and the agency has not yet made a public case for it - does one of them have to be in Boston’s urban core, and not, say in some old warehouse or industrial complex out near 495 or in the Worcester area?

“Maybe MassDOT should be looking at whether there are other sites like that between Pittsfield and 495,” Harry Mattison, an Allston resident and member of MassDOT's Allston Multimodal Project Task Force, told Contrarian Boston. “That land is certainly going to be a whole lot cheaper than space in Allston and also (better) from a highest and best use standpoint.”

And we haven’t even mentioned the fact that the T is building a new layover and maintenance complex on a site it owns in the Readville section of Hyde Park, which, according to the transit authority, will take some of the pressure off off another train repair yard it owns in Somerville.

Or the T’s plans to expand the tracks at South Station where the Postal Service mail sorting currently stands next to Fort Point Channel, which has huge potential for housing and other development.

A spokesperson for the T responded with a long statement that made no mention of the proposed Allston trainyard or the Springfield deal, but which defended “the Widett and Readville facilities” as “critical to enable us to connect people via mass transportation.”

“As we move forward, we are committed to demonstrating our intent to be a good neighbor supporting communities and improving quality of life,” the statement reads.

Yada, yada, yada.

Someone needs stand up for common sense here and stop this land grab by the trainiacs at the T before they do any more damage.

That would be you, Gov. Healey.

Troubling findings: State teachers union pushing members to teach students a radicalized, one-sided narrative about Israel and Gaza, report contends